Hybridity and Mimicry

Homi Bhabha - complication notion of self/other

• Hybridity:

  • cultural identity emerges in aa third space in between the cultures of colonisers and colonised

    → Inevitable mixing of cultures, cultures do not remain separate

• Mimicry:

  • imitation of features by colonisers by the colonised

    → Subversive effect: culture of coloniser can simply be performed by colonised

    → But mimicry cannot ever achieve true equality

Literary hybridity:

• Combination of cultural aspects of the coloniser and the colonised in literature

• E.g. Rushdie: English as language of (Anglo-)Indian literature